Covidien, a leading healthcare products company, today officially opened a facility employing 200 people in Dublin.

The firm's European Services Centre in south Dublin has been running for around a year with the bulk of the jobs in customer services already filled.

Some €11m has been invested in the Cherrywood centre, which houses customer services, credit control, contracts, pricing and import and export functions for 16 European countries.

Opening the facility, Taoiseach Brian Cowen said the centre's establishment was a vote of confidence in Ireland.

"This new European Services Centre and today's announcement of new investment in collaborative research and development is very much in keeping with the Government's policy to build a "Smart Economy" and to position Ireland as a global innovation hub."

The company also announced it is to put an initial €1.8m investment into a medical technologies research and development projects involving three Irish academic institutions. Details are to be announced later in the year.

The official opening comes after Covidien revealed in May that it was making around 200 staff redundant from its factory in Tullamore, Co Offaly.

Some 650 people were employed at the site in Sragh Industrial Estate, which has been in operation since 1982.

Enterprise Minister Batt O'Keeffe said the new centre demonstrated to international investors that Ireland has an attractive workforce.

"The new European Services Centre reaffirms Covidien's commitment to Ireland and demonstrates to the global investor community that we have the right mix of skills, workforce flexibility and pro-business policies to support business expansion plans and create jobs," he said.

"I look forward to Covidien's planned medical technologies research and development investment which will recognise our reputation as Europe's emerging innovation hub."

IDA Ireland chief Barry O'Leary said the establishment of the centre was strategically important to Ireland and the company.

Covidien employs 42,000 people in more than 60 countries, and its products are sold in more than 140 countries. It employs 2,000 people in Ireland.